It’s official. I’m spending the rest of my summer vacation buried in great books. Some of these contributions are stunning.
Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after‑time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child‑life, and the happy summer days.
Oh, man, I’d forgotten all about that, though I read it several times in school for different classes! But, seconded (on that being an awesome last line) and seconded on Saki in general just being great!
When he entered his department he had slowed down to his customary gait, and he walked quietly across the room to the W20 file, wearing a look of studious concentration.
Loved that story to death! I mean, he really knew how to set a* mood *in a story. Stories like that made me know that I had absolutely zero skill as a writer. The way great poetry let me know I had zero skill as a poet.
Oh, my gosh! I just remembered the entire story from that line! And it’s SO MUCH FUN!
Oh, just go read it!
And, those of you who’ve read it will be amused by the fact that I read it (nearly forty years ago as a kid) in an Alfred Hitchcock collection of ghost stories!
There is really nothing more to tell, but, as you may imagine, the Professor’s views on certain points are less clear cut than they used to be. His nerves, too, have suffered: he cannot even now see a surplice hanging on a door quite unmoved, and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than one sleepless night.
Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad - M R James
Not a story but a narrative poem:
The beech wood grey rose dim in the night
With moonlight fallen in pools of light,
The long dead leaves on the ground were rimed.
A clock struck twelve and the church-bells chimed.
Reynard the Fox: Or, the Ghost Heath Run - John Masefield
“The God you invented has nothing to say to me; but I hear my friend say that any anner of love is good if there’s kindness in it. Take heed of me. I am the night wind and the quiet morning light; take heed of me.” – Edgar Pangborn, “The Night Wind”
Here are two favorites of my students’, here in Korea:
“Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.”
“And if I ever have a son, I think I’ll name him…George! Or Bill! Any damn thing but Sue! I still hate that name!”
“But they never heard what it was that Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which had to do, for there was a gust or wind, and they were gone.”
Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
“Il lui avait rendu son bec – plus sec et plus discret – et lui avait dit, excité, en étendant les deux bras vers elle, les doigts des deux mains bien écartés : « Moi là, des mamans, là, j’en ai… tiens… comme ça! »”
!